The bizarre tale of Hitler's "son".

A TERRORIST group supporter who claims to be Adolf Hitler's illegitimate son has been teaching at a Melbourne school.
Despite having recent criminal convictions, extremist organisation leader and master forger Michael O'Hara was able to talk his way into a full-time job at Lilydale High School in January.
He still has an outstanding charge against him of taking firearms out of Victoria without informing police.

So far so ugly. But here's the kicker:

Mr O'Hara, using the name Zeev Gideon Korwan, is executive chairman of the Jewish Defence League in Australia.
Writing on the JDL website, Mr O'Hara has vowed to continue the legacy of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, whose extremist Kach group is listed by the US State Department as a terrorist organisation.

Yes, a man claiming to be the illegitimate son of that German guy with the Charlie Chaplin moustache is aligned with a Jewish organisation. I wonder if "Daddy" would've seen the irony. According to the article, he was sprung by a student looking at old copies of the Herald Sun, in which he found this story about some bloke claiming to be the son of Hitler, and the accompanying photo of said bloke turned out to be of his teacher. But:

A spokesman for the Department of Education confirmed to the Herald Sun that Mr O'Hara had been sacked last week after working at Lilydale High School since January.
But he claimed it was routine checking that led to the discovery of Mr O'Hara's criminal record, rather than the version told to the Herald Sun by several parents and teachers.
"Our new registration process, which now goes through the Victorian Institute of Teachers, threw up the fact he had a police record," the spokesman said.
"As soon as we were made aware of that the school was contacted and, in the interests of parents and students, he was sacked on the spot."

Of course it did, Mr Anonymous. We can't possibly let the kids take responsibility for uncovering a fuck-up your organisation made. The point raised by another teacher quoted in the article still stands: this is something that should've been detected BEFORE O'Hitler... sorry, O'Hara got the job in the first place. Even if this shiny new process of yours did unearth the man's criminal record, you still haven't explained why it didn't do so until he was already settled in the job.

posted by James Russell | 11:49 AM